The present invention relates to equipment enclosures, and specifically to equipment enclosures comprising heat exchangers.
Equipment enclosures for housing electronics and telecommunications equipment, such as telephone equipment and optical fiber systems, for use in indoor and outdoor environments are well known. As the use of telecommunications systems and optical fiber systems has proliferated, greater numbers of equipment enclosures are found in a variety of locations, such as industrial parks, commercial installations, and residential areas.
Improvements in the design and construction of electronics, telecommunications, and optical fiber equipment and systems, have resulted in power densities and temperatures of these equipment and systems to increase. Furthermore, at least one battery is oftentimes provided for use with the equipment housed within these enclosures. As known to those skilled in the art, typically, as the temperature of the equipment increases, the performance of the equipment, and the system of which the equipment is a part, degrades. In similar fashion, and as also known in the art, sustained increases in the temperature of the battery within the enclosure tends to decrease the service life of the battery, necessitating costly servicing and/or replacement of the battery. As a result thereof, manufacturers and providers of equipment enclosures and telecommunications systems have been seeking ways to cool the equipment housed within these enclosures.
Examples of attempts to cool equipment housed within an equipment enclosure are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,218, issued to Blanchard, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,740, issued to Flores, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,603,376, issued to Hendrix; U.S. Pat. No. 5,765,743, issued to Sakiura et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,988, issued to Mistry, et al. Common among these patents, is the construction of a heat exchanger or heat exchanging system directly within the enclosure, also referred to as an equipment cabinet, for the purpose of drawing and/or passing ambient air from outside the equipment enclosure through the enclosure for the purpose of cooling the equipment housed therein. Heat is exchanged through the use of structures that are relatively complicated in construction, and which increase the size, and necessarily the expense, of the enclosure in order to house the telecommunications or electronics equipment and the heat exchange system.
In situations where the heat exchanger is located in a central portion of the enclosure, the shelves carrying the equipment are necessarily limited in depth, and access to the heat exchanger is typically limited, thus making replacement or repair of the heat exchanger difficult.
Another problem with current equipment enclosures is the formation of a large temperature gradient within the equipment enclosure wherein the equipment mounted near the top of the enclosure is typically about 4 to 5 degrees Centigrade hotter than the equipment mounted near the bottom of the enclosure. What is needed, therefore, is an equipment cabinet of simple and inexpensive construction, which provides relatively easy access to heat exchangers, wherein the formation of a large temperature gradient is mitigated, and the depth of the equipment shelves is not necessarily limited by the heat exchangers.
An equipment enclosure includes a plurality of equipment compartments configured to form at least one vertical stack of equipment compartments. Each equipment compartment is adapted to receive equipment. The equipment compartments are positioned within an interior cavity of the enclosure. The enclosure includes at least one heat exchanger for cooling internal air circulating within the equipment enclosure. An air baffle is positioned between each pair of vertically adjacent equipment compartments to prevent internal air from flowing vertically through adjacent equipment compartments.